On efficiency, concentration and welfare

Nicolas Boccard ()

No 2009040, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: The welfare impact of a merger involves the market power offense and the efficiency defense. Salant et al. (1983) show that mergers among symmetric firms are unprofitable except for monopolization. We characterize the limit to this merger paradox in a simple linear Cournot oligopoly with asymmetric costs. Farrell and Shapiro (1990) provide sufficient conditions for a profitable merger to increase welfare but leave open whether it exists. We characterize the degree of cost asymmetry making a merger both profitable and socially desirable. Comparing rationalization and synergy within the efficiency defense, we show that for most industry structures, a rationalization merger is more likely to be welfare enhancing but a synergy merger is more likely to be profitable.

Keywords: merger; efficiency; concentration; welfare; antitrust; competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D24 D43 L40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-05-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://sites.uclouvain.be/core/publications/coredp/coredp2009.html (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cor:louvco:2009040

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE) Voie du Roman Pays 34, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Alain GILLIS ().